


The (very) Bad Year

by Requin



Category: Holby City
Genre: AU, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Berena Appreciation Week 2018, Break Up, Day 3, Day 4, F/F, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 07:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15702825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requin/pseuds/Requin
Summary: How Bernie Wolfe finds herself attending Serena Campbell’s hen night goes like this:They kiss in a cold theatre that still smells of blood and fear.They don’t kiss again.





	The (very) Bad Year

**Author's Note:**

> For Berena Appreciation Week 2018
> 
> A Day 3 break up/Day 4 AU mix

How Bernie Wolfe finds herself attending Serena Campbell’s hen night goes like this:

They kiss in a cold theatre that still smells of blood and fear. 

They don’t kiss again. 

Bernie goes to Ukraine, and when she boards the plane she sighs with relief. These few months away from Serena will do her good, she tells herself. Far away from Serena’s sparkling eyes and charming smile, she will have a chance to move on, to nurse her sore heart. 

Serena is straight. She wants to be friends. Bernie will find the strength to do that. 

She cries the entire plan ride. 

 

Kiev is miserable. The hospital is nice enough, so are her colleagues. Even the apartment she found is lovely. But all she can think about is Serena. Serena’s hands. Her smile. Her curves. Bernie makes herself sick thinking about their kiss. How soft Serena’s lips were, how she’d clutched at Bernie’s arms and shoulders. 

Bernie makes herself come at night, guiltily-but when hasn’t that always been the case- remembering the feel of Serena’s tongue in her mouth. 

In the morning, Bernie starts her mantra anew, like an addict that relapsed. Serena is straight. She wants to be friends. Serena is straight. She wants to be friends. 

They text a few times a week. Silly things about their hospitals and their colleagues. About the weather. Nothing more than friendly banter. And Bernie finds it more and more difficult to breathe. 

At the end of her secondment, her mind is made up. She can’t live like this anymore. She can’t sleep, her work is starting to suffer, and she’s lost weight. 

On the plane ride home, wedged against the window, she makes a decision. She will tell Serena everything. For once, she will tell the truth and own up to her feelings. She will be brave. A weight leaves her shoulders and she manages to sleep, finally. 

On her first day back, determined, she enters their office with two coffees and two pastries. Her stomach is in knots but she steels herself.

When the door opens behind her, she smiles, ready to say hello, to lay all that she is at Serena’s feet. But Serena is not alone. She is with a man. 

They are holding hands.

They all stare at each other for one agonising second. Bernie feels like she’s going to pass out. She thrusts the coffees towards them awkwardly. 

“Bernie,” Serena breathes, her eyes wide. 

Just the sound of her name on Serena’s lips is enough to send her into a tailspin. She can’t be here, watching whatever this is. She mumbles a strangled hello, almost walks into the door. 

She escapes to the roof and has to do a few breathing exercises to regain control of her shaking body. The tears come a second later, hot and bitter. Too late, a voice whispers. You were too late. Serena is straight. She wants to be friends. 

She presses both her hands to her sternum, her heart breaking in a million pieces. 

 

The next day is a little easier. The next week a little more. His name is Garry. He’s an accountant at the hospital. They met in a board meeting two weeks into Bernie’s secondment, and they’ve been seeing each other ever since. 

Serena tells her this over an opened chest cavity. Her voice is tentative, as if she’s fearful of Bernie’s reaction. But Bernie has had time to recoup. Serena wants to be friends. This is what friends do. 

“He seems like a great guy,” she says, as truthfully as she can. 

Serena looks at her for a long moment, but there’s a bleed, and they get back to work. 

 

Two weeks after her return, Bernie decides to snap out of it. She can’t keep drinking until she passes out. This is her life now. Serena, as a friend. So she chucks out the bottles, throws the cigarettes away. 

Little by little, bit by bit, she buries the love she feels for Serena. Far down. She reasons with herself. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. They are too different to be romantically involved. Bernie is bad at relationships. Serena deserves so much more. 

The next time they are in the office together, Bernie says she wants to meet Garry. She ignores Serena’s raised eyebrow, puts on her best smile. Nothing to see here, just a good friend. 

 

Garry is a good guy. He’s nice. He’s handsome enough, Bernie supposes. Sat opposite her at Albie’s, he tells good enough stories. He genuinely seems to like Serena, and treats her well. 

Bernie hates him with the power of a thousand suns. 

But she laughs at his jokes. She buys him a drink. And when he goes to the bathroom, she turns to Serena and says that she likes him. She pretends not to die of jealousy when he helps Serena put her coat on. 

 

A month goes by. Then another. And a third. Bernie realises she’s spending more time than ever with Serena. At work and outside of it. They’re always on the same shift, and Serena is in charge of rotas, so Bernie can’t do anything about that. But she also can’t say no when Serena invites her out on outings, either with Jason or without him. Never with Garry, though. They see each other in the evenings, on dates, and Bernie spends those hours at home, trying not to hyperventilate. 

In the spring, when it’s been six months, Garry proposes. 

Serena says yes. 

When she tells Bernie, she seems to watch Bernie’s face intently. But Bernie is an expert by now, her face is carefully blank. She smiles and congratulates Serena, and she doesn’t see the light dimming slightly in Serena’s eyes. 

Bernie will not lose this friendship. She will not lose Serena. She will not scare her away with unwanted feelings. 

Cameron calls her a coward. She takes the mantel on proudly. He doesn’t understand but Bernie doesn’t expect him too. He’s young, he’s too idealistic. 

A few weeks after the news of the engagement, Bernie is in the office trying to catch up on paperwork. Serena walks in and she smells of spring and Bernie has to ball her hands into fists to keep from making a mistake like declaring her undying love. 

Serena smiles at her and asks her to be her maid of honour. Or whatever term that fits their odd situation. Serena calls it her ‘best person’ and Bernie snidely asks if that isn’t supposed to be Garry. 

Serena’s eyes narrow, and so Bernie laughs it off. She accepts. 

And that is how they are in a bar in the centre of Holby, after an overpriced wine tasting. There is music and dancing, and all of Serena’s friends from the hospital. Morven is drunk and begs off early but Fletch is a menace on the dance floor and makes Raf laugh. Everyone is having a good time. 

Except for Ric. Loveable, pain in the arse, Ric. Bernie sees him watching her. He’s leaning on the bar with a glass of something expensive, and he’s looking at her with something very close to pity in his eyes. Bernie hates him in that moment. His knowing eyes are trained on her from the moment the party starts and when she goes out for a cigarette, there he is. 

“You are a fool,” he says.

And Bernie has had enough. She is a good person. She has sacrificed her well being for Serena’s, and she is sick of people telling her what to do. She’s had quite a lot of drink because Serena looks too lovely, and now she pushes Ric against the wall.

“Leave it,” she says darkly. 

Ric looks at her evenly, unafraid and still pitying. 

“Tell her you love her. She deserves that at least,” he says. 

Bernie scoffs and shoves him one last time for good measure. Serena deserves so much more than her love. Bernie is damaged goods, and could never be enough for Serena. And she’s straight. And she just wants to be friends. 

She stumbles back into the bar and walks into Serena, who asks her if she’s okay. 

She’s not okay. 

She looks into Serena’s dark eyes, almost gold in the lights pulsing above the bar, and her head is spinning. 

“Do you ever think about…?” She starts to say, the words rushing out. 

She stops them with a hand on her mouth. Her heart is pounding. Serena looks at her with wide eyes, and this is too close for comfort so Bernie does what she does best. 

She bolts. 

She grabs her bag, gives hasty goodbyes, and almost runs home, her lungs burning the entire way, her vision blurred by hot desperate tears. 

It’s the easiest thing to topple into bed, and the alcohol, sweet, sweet alcohol, brings the oblivion she craves. 

She passes out still fully clothed. 

 

She’s dreaming about Serena and her dark eyes. Serena looks so lovely, her skin smooth and her smile wide, and they are holding hands and Bernie has never been this happy. 

A pounding wakes her up. Her throat feels like sandpaper and her head is split in two. 

The pounding is coming from her door, and so she gets up, stumbling blindly, trying not to vomit, and she opens the door. 

It’s Serena. 

She’s obviously agitated and upset because her eyes are wide and her lips are pressed into a fine line. She’s also wearing the same clothes as last night. It’s raining and Serena is soaked, her hair plastered to her scalp. 

“What did you want to ask me last night?” She asks.

Her voice is too loud and Bernie winces. She tries to remember but everything is so hazy. The music, the dancing, her cigarette and then shoving Ric, and then, oh no, then talking to Serena and bolting. 

“You asked me if I ever thought about something, but you didn’t finish and then you left,” Serena says a little accusingly. 

Bernie looks around, terrified, trying to find exits, but she’s in her own home and Serena is blocking the only way out. 

Serena has marks down her cheeks from runny mascara and her eyes look huge and vulnerable. 

Bernie has been rendered mute, trapped in a toxic web of her own lies. 

“Only, I’ve not been able to think about anything else,” Serena continues. 

Bernie looks everywhere but at Serena, until Serena steps well into her personal space. 

“Tell me.” 

And the voice Serena uses is strong and demanding and it thrums through Bernie’s body. 

“I-I wanted to know if you sometimes thought about-think about that kiss,” Bernie says haltingly. 

Serena stays very still, like Bernie is a wild animal. She puts a hand under Bernie’s chin and Bernie closes her eyes, to avoid seeing the pity in Serena’s eyes, to avoid seeing her worst fears confirmed. 

“Open your eyes,” Serena demands. 

Bernie complies. Her breath hitches in her throat. Serena is looking at her with a quiet intensity that doesn’t look like disgust. 

“I think about it all the time,” Serena says, her voice breaking on the last word. 

Bernie’s chest constricts and she gulps in a breath of air, her lungs screaming. She feels dizzy. She doesn’t understand. 

Serena lunges at her and kisses her, hard. Her lips are cold from the rain and there’s a second of figuring out where noses should go, but soon Serena’s tongue in her mouth and she whimpers and gasps at the shock. 

This can’t be happening. Surely this is a misunderstanding. Bernie is shaking, the walls she’s built around her heart tumbling down in an almighty crash. 

Her greedy heart whispers to stop thinking and to take advantage and for once she listens. 

She scoops Serena is her arms and shoves her against the wall in the foyer and they are kissing in earnest and Bernie thinks she’s going to pass out. 

Serena is so soft and is making the most delightful and sinful noises. There’s a spot behind her ear that makes her cry out, and Bernie wastes no time in dragging her teeth over it. 

“Oh god, Bernie, yes, please,” Serena gasps. 

Yes, Bernie thinks. Yes, finally. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to lead Serena to the living room and to lay her down on the sofa. Her clothes come off, and Serena’s eyes are unguarded and full of admiration. She takes far more time getting rid of Serena’s clothes, because this is a fantasy come true and if she’s only going to have this once, as surely this must be a one off, then Bernie is going to savour it.

She peels off Serena’s dress, licks the skin she unveils. Serena is panting and clutching at Bernie’s shoulders and then her hair. Bernie can’t stop kissing Serena, exploring her body and then going back for another kiss, until they are breathless and gasping and crazy with need and want. 

Serena is gorgeous, naked on her sofa. Bernie thinks she looks like a goddess and so she tells her between desperate kisses. Serena keens and moans and when Bernie finally licks between her legs she shouts, her body taut like a bow. 

It’s Serena, Bernie can’t stop thinking. Finally, Serena. And she’s all Bernie ever dreamed of. Her taste, the sounds she makes, the feel of her skin, they all defy her wildest expectations. 

Bernie pours all that she is into making love to the woman she adores, and when Serena comes, eyes wide and hands buried in Bernie’s hair, Bernie comes with her, tears in her eyes. 

There is a breathless silence where everything is perfect. 

But then Bernie comes crashing down. She sits up, horrified, sure that she has lost Serena for ever because she couldn’t do the simple thing of hiding her feelings better. She’s about to get up and mumble excuses and bolt again, when Serena grabs her wrist. 

“Stay,” Serena says firmly. 

And so Bernie does. 

“You’re in love with me?” Serena asks, her voice trembling. 

Bernie has never felt more vulnerable in her entire life. Forget heart surgery, this is terrifying. 

She nods, her eyes full of tears, an excuse already forming on her lips. She wants to beg Serena for forgiveness, to assure her that nothing will change, that she can still be Serena’s very good friend. 

Serena breathes in, and she smiles tremulously. 

“I love you, too,” she says. 

Bernie blinks. And blinks again. 

“What?” 

“I love you, Bernie. I always have,” Serena confirms. 

Bernie shakes her head uncomprehendingly. 

“No, you love Garry,” she says, as if explaining something to a small child. 

Serena laughs a wet kind of chuckle, and she wipes her eyes with the back of her hands. 

“I broke up with him last night,” she says. 

Bernie sits there, her life upside down, and the only thing she can do is to grab Serena’s hand and hold it in her own. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, because that’s what she thinks she should say. 

Serena shakes her head and laughs, a little more surely this time. 

“I’m not.” 

And then they’re kissing again and blood rushes to Bernie’s ears. She’s still very much keyed up from tasting Serena and she wants to feel Serena’s hands on her, but her lust addled brain suddenly changes gears and she sits back up with a frown. 

“So, you love me? You are in love with me?” Bernie asks.

The concept seems so far fetched after months of seeing Serena attached to someone else, and she doesn’t understand what has changed. 

“I do, yes,” Serena says from her position on the sofa, her cheeks flushed. 

“Why didn’t you say anything? All this time, you-you were with him and I thought you just wanted to be friends,” Bernie says haltingly, tears coming to her eyes. 

Serena sits up as well and envelops Bernie in her arms. Bernie can feel Serena’s frantic heartbeat.

“After we kissed, and you said we should leave it there, and just be friends, I thought that’s what you wanted, so I-I tried to move on and at every turn you said you were fine and that you liked Garry and I thought ‘oh well I’ll still have her as a friend’, and it was so hard but I thought I didn’t have a chance,” Serena sobs, her body shaking. 

Bernie holds her tightly and she cries too, at the anguish and the sleepless nights and the loneliness and at the relief, too. 

Serena kisses her, face wet from tears and she whispers “I love you” over and over again, as she drags her teeth over Bernie’s pulse point, and lays her beneath her, and then they are rocking against each other, looking into each other’s eyes with something like wonder. 

Bernie lets go, anchored by the thigh between her legs and the love she sees on Serena’s face, and she’s never been this happy, making love with Serena on her ratty sofa. 

They both come at the same time, and it might be messy and they’re still crying a little, but Bernie feels lighter than she has since she’s come back from Ukraine, all those months ago. 

They lie together, still intertwined, and Bernie tries to catch her breath. 

“I’m sorry I was such a coward,” Serena whispers in the crook of Bernie’s neck.

Bernie, alarmed, twists to look at Serena. 

“Never say that! You have been the one constant in my life and I have cherished all our time together these past months. I would have been happy to continue like this if it meant you were happy,” Bernie says firmly. 

Serena sniffles and burrows deeper in Bernie’s arms. 

“My self sacrificing soldier. I am happy now. With you. Are you? Do you know how much I love you?” Serena says. 

Bernie remains silent, still shell shocked and a little disbelieving. 

Serena turns in her arms and looks up at her. Her eyes are dark and shining. 

“Then let me show you, my love. Let me show you how much I love you.”


End file.
